Howard L. Myers - The Creatures of Man

The Creatures of Man

Table of Contents

PREFACE

PARTNER

2

3

4

5

6

7

The Creatures of Man

2

3

4

All Around the Universe

Health Hazard

Practice!

Lost Calling

2

3

The Other Way Around

The Reluctant Weapon

Out, Wit!

Fit For a Dog

Psychivore

2

3

THE CHALICE CYCLE

2

3

4

5

Forever Enemy

Heavy Thinker

War in Our Time

Misinformation

Little Game

2

3

4

The Frontliners

2

3

4

5

6

7

Questor

The Creatures of Man

Howard L. Myers

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any

resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

"Partner" was first published inAnalog in June, 1968, under the title "Duplex" (writing as "Verge Foray").

"The Creatures of Man" was first published inIF in May, 1968 (writing as "Verge Foray"). "All Around

the Universe" was first published inThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction in January, 1972.

"Health Hazard" was first published inAnalog in June, 1973. "Practice" was first published inAnalog in

March, 1968 (writing as "Verge Foray"). "Lost Calling" was first published inAnalog in September, 1967

(writing as "Verge Foray"). "The Other Way Around" was first published inInfinity 2 in 1971. "The

Reluctant Weapon" was first published inGalaxy in December, 1952. "Out, Wit!" was first published in

Analog in June, 1972. "Fit for a Dog" was first published inThe Magazine of Fantasy & Science

Fiction in September, 1971. "Psychovore" was first published inFantastic in June, 1970. "The Earth of

Nenkunal" was first published inFantastic in January, 1974. "Forever Enemy" was first published in

Analog in December, 1970. "Heavy Thinker" was first published inAnalog in August, 1970. "War in Our

Time" was first published inAnalog in March, 1972. "Misinformation" was first published inAnalog in

April, 1972. "Little Game" was first published inGalaxy in June, 1974. "The Frontliners" was first

published inGalaxy in July, 1974. "Questor" was first published inAmazing in January, 1970.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-3607-5

Cover art by Bob Eggleton

First printing, May 2003

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Myers, Howard L., 1930-1971.

The creatures of man / by Howard L. Myers ; edited by Eric Flint and Guy Gordon.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-7434-3607-5 (trade pb.)

1. Life on other planets—Fiction. 2. Space colonies—Fiction. 3. Space warfare—Fiction.

I. Flint, Eric. II. Gordon, Guy, 1951- III. Title.

PS3563.Y394C74 2003

813'.54—dc21

2003041679

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

PREFACE

Howard L. Myers is almost completely forgotten today, although some people can still be found who

remember the name "Verge Foray," under which he published many of his stories. But in the brief time his

writing career lasted, from 1967 to 1971, he was a prominent figure in science fiction.

It's a sad tale. Myers was born in 1930, and published his first science fiction story at the age of

twenty-two. That was "The Reluctant Weapon," published in the December 1952 issue ofGalaxy. (The

story is included in this volume.)

And . . . that was it, for another fifteen years. Why? We don't know. For whatever reasons, it wasn't

until Myers was in his late thirties that he began writing again. And once he did, the stories practically

came pouring out—and almost every one of them excellent. His stories appeared in most of the premier

science fiction and fantasy magazines of the day—Analog, Galaxy, If, Amazing, The Magazine of

F&SF—and he seemed on the verge of becoming one of science fiction's top authors.

We'll never know. In the summer of 1971, against the advice of his mother, Howard Myers took a

vacation to Florida. The combination of the heat and his medical condition combined to give him a

massive heart attack which killed him. He was forty-one years old.

There have been other science fiction writers struck down in their prime, of course. Henry Kuttner and

Cyril Kornbluth immediately come to mind; or Keith Laumer, who survived the stroke he suffered in his

mid-forties, but was never the same writer afterward; or Randall Garrett, whose mind was destroyed in

his early 50s by a viral brain infection. But at least those writers had enjoyed long and successful careers

before the end came. That we can think of, only Stanley G. Weinbaum and Rosel George Brown

suffered the same fate as Myers: felled, just on the eve of triumph.

There's something horribly poignant about it; as if Achilles, stepping ashore outside the walls of Troy,

had lost his footing and drowned in the surf.

So be it. Achilles was a noted warrior even before the Trojan war, after all. And whatever Howard L.

Myers might have become, what remains is what hedid accomplish. And that was no small thing. In four

short years, he produced a body of work which, though small in comparison to that of writers with longer

careers, certainly does not suffer in terms of quality.

One novel,Cloud Chamber. Two, really, if we count the novellas "The Infinity Sense" and "The

Mind-Changer" as parts of a single story—which is how Myers intended them to be read.

A cycle of stories, usually called the "Econo-War series" but actually part of a broader framework,

which are unique in science fiction. (The entirety of it, which we've titled "The Chalice Cycle," is included

in this volume.)

And almost twenty other stories, ranging from the chilling "Fit for a Dog" to some of the wittiest science

fiction stories ever written.

So, we invite you to make the acquaintance of an author who, had it not been for misfortune, would

have been a well-known name in science fiction. And, who knows? Hopefully, this volume will go a long

way toward restoring a reputation which deserves to be.

—Eric Flint

—Guy Gordon

January 2003

PARTNER

1

The one-man clopter was zipping over New Mexico when Kent Lindstrom's left hand dropped its side

of the book of Beethoven sonatas. Kent stared with annoyance as the hand reached forward to fool with

the manual control wheel.

Damn it all! he fretted. It was Pard's memory, not his own, that needed refreshing on some spots in the

"Hammer-Klavier"! He had been looking over the sonata, instead of utilizing the flight to Los Angeles for

a relaxing nap, purely for Pard's benefit.

But did Pard pay attention? Hell, no! He let his mind stray instead, ignoring Beethoven and indulging his

childish fascination with gadgetry.

The sonata volume dangling neglected from his right hand, Kent watched his left hand turn the control

wheel a few inches counterclockwise, then release it. The wheel automatically snapped back into place

and the clopter, having been swerved slightly from the center of the traffic beam, started correction to get

back on its course.

Kent opened his mouth to advise Pard, in words that left no doubt, that it was time to quit being a kid.

But at that instant a thunderousWhap! shook the clopter. Kent dropped the music volume and gazed

anxiously at the control panel, wondering if Pard's fooling around had busted something.

The only red on the panel was coming from the cabin-pressure indicator. The clopter had taken a

puncture, and its air was whistling away into the stratosphere outside. Kent grabbed for the emergency

oxygen mask before he realized his left hand had already put it on his face and was now tightening its

strap, getting it a bit tangled in his long, thick hair.

Despite his faults, Pard could think fast in a pinch.

"What happened?" Kent asked under the mask.

Pard took control of his neck muscles and turned his head to look down and to the right. There, in the

alumalloy floor, was a hole over an inch across, the shredded metal curled upward along its edges.

Through it Kent could see hazily a tiny panorama of New Mexican landscape sliding by in the late

afternoon sun.

Then Pard turned his head upward to focus on the spot where the projectile had made its exit. The hole

in the roof was a few feet to the rear of the hole in the floor.

"What could've donethat?" muttered Kent.

Pard did not attempt a reply. Kent retrieved Beethoven from the floor, but left the book unopened in his

lap while he stared at the controls. The clopter was functioning perfectly, keeping to the course and

velocity that were correct for its moving niche in the air-traffic pattern.

Struck by a crazy thought, Kent drew a mental line between the punctures. The line ran parallel to the

position of his body, and not more than three feet to the right of his chair.

And Pard had swerved the craftto the left just before the projectile struck!

"You kept that thing from hitting us!" Kent said.

His head answered with the slightest nod:Yes.

Kent gasped: "How did you know to swerve?"

His left hand reached around to tap his right temple—Pard's half of the brain—with a finger.

"Oh, sure you're bright!" growled Kent, annoyed because the answer told him nothing. "The brightest

stupe I know!" But after he simmered down for a moment he added, "Sorry, Pard. I didn't really mean

that."

His left hand patted the top of his head forgivingly.

It was silly, Kent knew, to get cross with Pard for being . . . well, for beingPard. He wouldn't have

called him a stupe if he hadn't been upset and a bit frightened by the close call they had just had.

It was Pard's way to be noncommunicative, and rather devil-may-care. (But Kent could only guess at

the latter because there was no way to learn Pard's real attitude about anything.) The language center

was in Kent's hemisphere of the brain. Pard could not talk, and his few unwilling attempts at writing had

been such painful, meaningless scrawls that Kent had long ago quit trying to achieve two-way verbal

communication with him. Pard could understand the written or spoken word with ease, but the ability to

express words simply was not in him.

Thus, Pard was not equipped to answer such a question as "How did you know to swerve?" The reply

required concepts inexpressible in the "twitch language" Pard used for such essential thoughts as "yes,"

"no," "give me control," "take over," "wake up," and "I'm going to sleep."

But this didn't mean Pard was stupid. For one thing, as Kent sometimes admitted to himself, the only

reason Pard was not the better pianist of the two of them was that he did nottry as hard as Kent. For

another, Pard was often aware of environmental factors that Kent missed. The object which had hit the

clopter, for instance . . .

* * *

Kent looked at the tiny row of radar meters at the left edge of the control panel. The six little indicator

needles trembled constantly with fluctuations in the thin surrounding air. They would have been within

Pard's range of peripheral vision even while his eyes were directed at the Beethoven score—and their

movements obviously told Pard a lot more than they told him. Pard had been able to read an indication

that an object was approaching from below—on a collision course, in fact—and he had swerved the

craft at just the right moment to save their life.

Having figured this out, Kent felt better—about Pard, at any rate. It was easy enough to feel haunted,

with another consciousness sharing his skull, without that consciousness acting upon information it could

not possibly have acquired. The radar meters explained where the knowledge came from.

"I'll never bad-mouth your fooling with gadgets again," Kent said tensely.

Pard accepted that without response.

As for the projectile . . . Well, thought Kent, objects don't shoot up from the ground of their own

accord. And if they did, they wouldn't be aimed—or guided—precisely to tear through a lone man

zooming past at an altitude of fifteen miles.

"Somebody tried to kill us," he said, "and that doesn't make sense!"

Yes, Pard twitched in reply. The left wrist went limp:Relax our body.

Kent did so, and set the chair on recline. After all, they had an important concert to play in less than

three hours, and they should be alert and vigorous, in body and in minds, for the performance.

He idly opened the Beethoven volume again. The pages happened to part where a photo had been

inserted in the book, and he knew what it was before looking at it closely: another picture of the "mystery

girl." He suspected that Pard had found the photos some time when Kent was taking a "walking nap."

Maybe a previous occupant had left them in a hotel suite. Why Pard kept scattering the photos around

for him to find, Kent couldn't guess, and he didn't try to ask. A joke, perhaps. Pard was sort of peculiar

about women, anyway.

He put the photo back and laid the book aside. He had to get a little rest.

The holing of the clopter, he mused, if not some kind of wild accident,had to be the result of mistaken

identity, or perhaps the act of a crackpot who regarded anybody well-heeled enough to travel by clopter

as an enemy. The attackcouldn't have been aimed at him personally . . . and, therefore, it wouldn't be

repeated.

He dozed for the remainder of the flight, but his eyes stayed open and alert. Pard was keeping watch.

2

Kent woke when Pard set the clopter down lightly on a restricted portion of the USC Arts Complex

roof, but he was content to observe as Pard slid the sonata volume into his hand satchel and climbed

from the craft. A roof attendant waved from some distance away, and started forward when Pard waved

back.

Pard ducked under the clopter's cabin to peer up at its belly. He found the hole quickly, but after a

glance at it he sidled another step toward the craft's centerline. Here he gazed up at a curious,

bright-green circular spot, about eight inches in diameter, which appeared painted on the craft's

underside.

If the projectile had hit that spot, Kent realized, it would have hit him as well.

"They had a target to aim at." Kent formed the words soundlessly.

Of course, Pard twitched, combining a nod and a shrug. He picked at the edge of the spot with a

fingernail until he had enough of it free to grip between his fingers. Then with one clean motion he peeled

the entire spot from the metal surface. It looked like a disk of adhesive paper. Pard opened the hand

satchel, slid the disk inside, and slapped it against the back of a music volume.

"Mr. Lindstrom?" called the roof attendant, peering under the craft. "Is anything wrong?"

"No," Kent replied. He took over, snapped the satchel shut, and crept out. "Something hit the clopter. I

was taking a look at the hole it made."

The attendant's eyes widened. "That could've killed you!"

"Well, it didn't," Kent replied curtly. "Now if you'll direct me to my dressing room, and inform my

manager Mr. Siskind that I've arrived . . ."

* * *

His recital went excellently. He played for a packed house in the main auditorium of the Arts Complex,

with the program televised nationwide via the noncommercial channels. It was a golden opportunity to

win public affirmation of the acclaim of the critics—that Kent Lindstrom was by all odds the foremost

young pianist of the decade.

The reaction of the house proved he was doing exactly that. The audience did not wait until the end to

give him a standing ovation; he got one for the final work before the intermission break, a fantasia

composed by himself.

Beethoven's "Hammer-Klavier" sonata, almost as demanding of sheer physical endurance as of technical

and interpretive skills, was the sole work following intermission. The sonata is analogous to the same

composer's Ninth Symphony, in that it imposes such superhuman demands on performers that a merely

adequate rendition is something to marvel at.

But Kent Lindstrom considered himself two pianists rather than one. There was Kent himself, the

dominant consciousness, the boss, the inhabitant of the left hemisphere of the brain, who directed the

right hand at the keyboard. And there was Pard, the voiceless secondary consciousness isolated in the

severed right hemisphere, who directed the left hand.

Kent Lindstrom was, therefore, the one pianist of whom it could truly be said that his right hand didn't

know what his left hand was doing. Complicated counterpoint and devilishly tricky cross-rhythms, that

would swamp the brain of a normal pianist with the mere task of playing notes, were handled readily by

Kent Lindstrom on a division-of-labor basis, leaving both his minds with attention to spare for interpretive

niceties.

He did more thanplay the "Hammer-Klavier" sonata. He did the piece justice.

The applause was tremendous and demanding, but Kent had looked forward to this moment—when he

was assuredly entered among the immortals of music—with too much anticipation to waste its essence on

some crowd-pleasing little triviality of an encore.

He knew what to do instead. After several bows, he returned to the piano while a complete hush fell

over the house. With his hands in his lap and his gaze on the keyboard, he counted twenty seconds of

silence. Then he stood suddenly and faced the audience.

"Anything I could play after the great 'Hammer-Klavier' would be a terrible anticlimax," he proclaimed in

a ringing voice. "Thank you, and good evening."

He strode from the stage to a final approving roar.

* * *

At the jubilant post-concert reception, attended by numerous civic and university bigwigs plus a selection

of music students and faculty, Kent quickly spotted a girl he wanted.

His head gave a barely perceptible shake:Lay off, Pard warned him.

Kent frowned in dull anger, but obeyed. He had been through all this several times before, and knew

that when Pard told him to stay away from a girl, he had better stay away. Even if Kent was the dominant

consciousness, he could not keep up a continuous guard against Pard's sneaking enough control to make

him do something absurdly embarrassing, and usually with the girl watching contemptuously.

There was the time in Washington, for instance, when Pard had him flitting around like a gay homosexual

for five minutes before Kent even realized what was going on. An incident like that could be damaging,

and very hard for a well-known musician to live down.

Kent griped to himself. On this night, of all nights, why can't I have a choice girl? Why's Pard so

nonsensical about women, anyway?

But the giggly, blond student violinist Pard finally let him accept for the evening wasn't at all bad, even

though she was a type that Kent couldn't get enthused about. He wasn't sorry to see her go when his

unobtrusive business manager, Dave Siskind, routed her politely from Kent's hotel suite around two a.m.

Kent yawned and settled down with the intention of sleeping at least until noon . . .

. . . And woke before dawn, fully clothed, crouched behind a dumpster in a dark alley, with a wavering

ringing in his ears that he took a moment recognizing as police sirens.

* * *

He stared around wildly. The police, he could tell by the sound, were stopping at the mouth of the alley,

while more sirens wailed a couple of blocks away. He turned to retreat deeper into the alley, but Pard

stopped him.

That won't work.

"Blind alley?" Kent asked.

Yes.

Kent squatted back down and thought furiously. He had found indications before that Pard was an

occasional night stroller: mud on shoes that had been clean when he went to bed, a few unaccounted-for

scratches and bruises—and those photos of the "mystery girl" had to come from somewhere.

But Pard had never before wakened him during one of his after-hours jaunts. Why this time? Because

Pard couldn't talk?

"You're in a mess I'm supposed to talk us out of," Kent guessed.

Yes.

Kent sighed unhappily, stood up, and walked out of the alley, into the glare of the police lights. Several

officers rushed forward, and he was quickly frisked.

"Got any identification?" one demanded.

Kent felt in his empty pockets. "No. I left my wallet at the hotel. What's all this about?"

"Which hotel?"

"Sheraton Sunset. I'm Kent Lindstrom. Now, officers . . ."

"Lindstrom?" a policeman interrupted, staring at him closely. "Yeah, I guess you are at that. Hey, Mike!

Call in that we've found Lindstrom. He looks O.K., except for some skinned knuckles."

Kent hadn't noticed the twinges of pain in his hands until then. He lifted them and glared at the bruised

and bleeding knuckles. That goofy Pard! His hands were histools! And tools were not to be abused in

silly, back-alley brawls!

"Who'd you have a fight with?" the officer asked.

"I didn't ask their names," Kent replied, slightly pleased with his inspiration to make his opponents plural.

"All I know is I couldn't sleep and went out for a stroll. After a while these guys jumped me. Let's

see"—he peered around with a show of puzzlement. "I'm sort of turned around, but I think it happened

over that way," he pointed, "maybe where those sirens are sounding."

It was a good guess. The policeman nodded. "That's about the luckiest stroll you ever took, Lindstrom,"

he said. "You'll have to come down to headquarters and make a statement. I'll fill you in on the way."

"Lucky?" groaned Kent. "I'm a piano player, officer. And look at the mess I've got my hands in!"

"They'll heal," the policeman replied, "but if you'd been in your bed at three o'clock you wouldn't have. A

bomb went off under it."

* * *

There were complications at police headquarters, and Kent wound up in a cell. Whoever he had

bloodied his knuckles on did not show up to complain, but there was also a question of attempted arson

near the scene of the fight. The police were inclined to keep a tight grip on anyone found near the scene

of a set fire without a good excuse for being there.

Kent phoned his manager Siskind to get him an attorney. Then he was ushered to his private niche in the

cell block, where he flopped on the bunk and quickly went to sleep.

3

When he woke he was relieved to find himself still on the bunk with his eyes closed. He sat up and

peered through the bar-and-steel barriers until he spotted the keeper.

"Hey!" he called out. "When do I get breakfast?"

A man in a nearby cell chortled, "The curly-head pianner player wants his breakfast, fellers!" Kent

ignored the remark and the resulting chuckles from the other prisoners.

"You get lunch in forty minutes," the keeper replied.

Kent stood up and began his morning workout as best he could within the confined space. This was his

routine—a vigorous twenty minutes every morning to keep the rest of his body up to par with his

hardworking hands, arms and shoulders. With an audience this time, he show-boated a bit with extended

push-ups, one-leg knee-bends, double flutter-whoops and other acrobatic exercises. The prisoners and

keeper watched with gratifying awe. His knuckles, which the police surgeon had treated, gave him no

pain under their bandages, so they were probably all right.

Howard L. Myers - The Creatures of Man

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